Systems and methods for selecting advertisements for display over a communications network

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods are provided for selecting advertisements for display over a communications network and, more particularly, to systems and methods for selecting video advertisements for display within internet web pages based on relevance, bid price, past performance, or a combination thereof.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to systems and methods forselecting advertisements for display over a communications network and,more particularly, to systems and methods for selecting videoadvertisements for display within internet web pages based on relevance,bid price, past performance, or combinations thereof.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Advertisements such as banner ads are often displayed in a web page inresponse to, for example, a user typing the Universal Resource Locator(“URL”) for that web page into a web browser or selecting a link for theweb page from a list of search results. Typically, each advertisement isassociated with a single advertiser and may include text and/or graphicsand/or audio. Upon selection of an advertisement (e.g., left click witha mouse), the web browser can be redirected to a web page associatedwith the advertisement from which the user can, for example, receiveadditional information, place online orders, or complete othertransactions.

Advertisements can be selected for presentation in a web page in avariety of ways. An advertiser may pay to have its advertisementsdisplayed within a given web page. For example, a brokerage house, bank,or manufacturer of accounting software may contract with a web pageprovider to have an advertisement displayed within a web page related tostock markets and financial data. The idea according to this approach isthat end-users are more likely to “click-through” or otherwise respondto advertisements that are closely related to the content of the webpage. While common, this approach limits the audience who will see theadvertisements to visitors of the given web page. If an advertisement isnot effective on the particular web page, the advertiser's only recourseis to stop advertising on that page and find a new web page on which toadvertise.

In another approach, advertisements are selected for display within aweb page substantially in real time based on demographical informationof the particular user who is accessing the web page. For example, eachuser may be required to complete a questionnaire, provided via theinternet, as a prerequisite to receiving access to the web page.Alternatively, a profile may be created for a user based on the user'sactivities while on-line including, for example, an indication of theweb pages visited, how frequently and for how long those web pages arevisited, how often the user makes a purchase on-line, and anydemographic information the user supplies in the course of visitingwebsites. Demographic information may also be collected and retained byproviders of web pages through the use of “cookies”. Web pages thatplace cookies within the memory of the user's computer can recognize theuser whenever the user accesses the web page and can be used to track,for example, how often the user accesses the web page. The ideaaccording to this approach is that end-users are more likely to“click-through” or otherwise respond to advertisements that are closelyrelated to the user's interests and characteristics. However, thisapproach for selecting and displaying advertisements is often perceivedas intrusive of the user's privacy and may be ineffective when the webpage provider has insufficient information regarding the user'sdemographics.

Internet search engines also exist that display advertisements within alist of search results based on the keywords entered by a user into asearch field. Typically, advertisers bid on the keywords and the highestbidder for a particular keyword is awarded the top most position in aranked list, the next highest bidder is assigned the second highestposition in the list, and so on. However, these systems have variousdrawbacks, including that the system has no control over the selectionand display of advertising once the user navigates away from the webpage containing the search results.

In view of the foregoing, it would be advantageous to provide animproved system and method for selecting and displaying advertisementsover the internet.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods forselecting advertisements (“ads”) for display over a communicationsnetwork, which may include selecting video ads for display over theinternet based on relevance, bid price, past performance, or acombination thereof.

An aspect of the invention provides for the selection and display of adsover a communications network. The system may include a database of oneor more ads (e.g., video ads) and an ad selection application. The adselection application may be configured to receive a request foradvertising from a user computer (e.g., personal computer, laptopcomputer, mobile phone, etc.), wherein the request is generatedautomatically by the user computer in accordance with instructionsprovided to the user computer by a content publisher upon the usercomputer accessing a page (e.g., world wide web page) provided by thecontent publisher. For example, the instructions may include markup codeprovided to the user computer in response to the user computersubmitting to the content publisher a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP)request for access to the page. In response to the request, the video adselection application may select one or more of the ads for displaywithin the page.

Another aspect provides that the request for advertising submitted bythe user computer may include one or more advertisement selectioncriteria, which may be used by the ad selection application to select anadvertisement. For example, the ad selection criteria may be thelocation, size, and/or format of an advertisement region within thepage, an identifier of the content publisher of the page, an identifierof the page, end-user demographic data, end-user preferences, or acombination thereof.

In some embodiments, the ad selection application may be configured toselect a sequence of ads for display within the page. The ads may beordered at least partially randomly by the ad selection application ormay be ordered according to any other suitable approach or combinationof approaches. For example, in some embodiments, the ad selectionapplication may be configured to order the sequence of ads at leastpartially according to maximum bid amounts by advertisers associatedwith the ads. The ad selection application may configured to order thesequence of ads at least partially according to actual amountsadvertisers associated with the advertisements would pay based onmaximum bid amounts submitted by the advertisers for the ad placementopportunity. In still other embodiments, the ad selection applicationmay be configured to order the sequence of ads at least partiallyaccording to past performance of the ads within the database or similarads. The system may include a content parser configured to parse thecontent of the page in order to determine one or more relevancy scorescorresponding to the relevancy of the page to one or more themes. Insuch embodiments, the ad selection application may be configured toorder the sequence of advertisements at least partially according to therelevancy scores.

In another aspect of the present invention, a system and correspondingmethod are provided for responding to a request for access to a page.The system may include a content publisher configured to receive arequest from a user computer for access to a page. In response to therequest, the content publisher may transmit both content for the pageand instructions to the user computer, where the instructions direct theuser computer to automatically request advertising from an advertisementselection system. For example, the content for the page and theinstructions may form at least part of an HTTP response.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the present invention, reference is madeto the following description, taken in conjunction with the accompanyingdrawings, in which like reference characters refer to like partsthroughout, and in which:

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system for selecting video advertisementsfor display over a communications network (e.g., internet) in accordancewith an embodiment of the present invention; and

FIGS. 2-3 are flowcharts of illustrative stages involved in theselection and display of video advertisements within pages (e.g., webpages) over a communications network in accordance with embodiments ofthe present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Embodiments of the present invention relate to systems and methods forselecting and displaying an advertisement that includes video (“videoadvertisement” or “video ad”), or a sequence of video advertisements,substantially in real time in response to a request by an end-user foraccess to a web page. The advertisements may alternatively oradditionally include text and/or graphic(s) (e.g., a logo for theadvertiser), where the text and/or graphics may be related or unrelatedto the video itself. FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a system 100 forselecting video advertisements for display over a network (e.g., theinternet) in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention.System 100 includes user computer(s) 102, content publishers 104, andvideo advertisement (“ad”) system 106 that communicate with one anotherover network 108 (e.g., internet). Each of user computer(s) 102, contentpublishers 104, and video ad system 106 may be in electricalcommunication with internet 108 via a suitable communications capabilitysuch as, for example, a cable or satellite connection, a local areanetwork (“LAN”), any other suitable wired, wireless, or opticalconnection, or a combination thereof.

User computer 102 may include any suitable computing equipment foraccessing content (e.g., web pages) over internet 108 and displayingvideo advertisements to end user(s) at user computer 102. For example,as shown in FIG. 1, user computer 102 may be a desktop computer. Inother examples, user computer 102 may be a laptop computer, telephone(e.g., mobile phone), personal digital assistant (“PDA”), BlackBerrydevice, or any other suitable computing device. User computer 102 mayhave a web browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, MozillaFirefox) operating thereon for facilitating communications over internet108. The web browser may access and read marked-up documents (e.g., HTMLdocuments) from, for example, content publishers 104 and then translateand render those documents into web pages that can be viewed by endusers at user computer 102. Typically, system 100 will include multipleuser computers 102 although only one user computer 102 is shown in FIG.1 to avoid overcomplicating the drawing.

Each content publisher 104 may be, for example, a publisher of webpage(s) over internet 108. For example, one content publisher may be thecomputing system responsible for publishing the web pages viewable athttp://www.espn.com. Another content publisher may be the computingsystem responsible for publishing the web pages viewable athttp://www.foxnews.com. Each content publisher 104 may include one ormore web servers for receiving and responding to requests from usercomputers 102 for access to the web page(s) provided by the contentpublisher. End users of user computers 102 may request access to a givenweb page by, for example, typing the Universal Resource Locator (“URL”)for that web page into an address region of a web browser display or byselecting a link for the web page from a list of search results (e.g.,Google search results).

Video ad system 106 may include video ad selection application 110,video ads database 112, publishers database 114, and content parser 116.Video ad selection application 110 may include any suitable hardware,software, or combination thereof for receiving and responding torequests for video advertisements received by video ad system 106 viainternet 108. For example, video ad selection application 110 mayinclude one or more web server(s). Responsive to the requests, video adselection application 110 may select and transmit a video advertisement,or a sequence of video advertisements, for display within web pagesprovided by content publishers 104. Application 110 may select the videoads for display within the web pages based on any suitable criteriaincluding, for example, relevance of the ads to the content of the webpages, bid price(s) of the associated advertisers, past performance ofthe video ads (or similar ads) upon placement within web pages by videoad system 106, or a combination thereof. In some embodiments, therequests for video advertisements may be initiated by web browsersoperating on user computers 102, in a manner described in greater detailbelow. In some embodiments, the requests for video advertisements may besent directly from the content publishers 104 to video ad system 106. Asan alternative or in addition to the functions of video ad selectionapplication 110 just described, application 110 may provide advertisers(not shown) with access to a bid/auction interface through which theadvertisers can bid on or purchase ad placement opportunities and/ormanage their respective accounts with video ad system 106.

Video ads database 112 may store video advertisement(s) for displaywithin the web pages provided by content publishers 104 and accessed byuser computers 102. The video ads stored in database 112 may bedownloaded from advertiser(s) over internet 108 or received by videoselection system 106 according to any other suitable approach (e.g.,uploaded from portable storage media such as a digital video discsprovided by the advertisers). Alternatively or additionally, video adsdatabase 112 may store information associated with the videoadvertisements including, for example, topics/themes (e.g., fordetermining relevance of the ads to given web pages), associated textand/or graphic(s) (e.g., for simultaneous display with the video adwithin a web page), close captioning information, information regardingthe size, resolution, and or length (e.g., in seconds) of the video,information regarding past performance of the video advertisements(e.g., number of plays by video ad system 106 and/or click-throughs byend users of user computers 102), associated advertiser identifiers(e.g., for linking to billing information for the advertisers), bidand/or purchase amounts by the advertisers, and/or other criteriaregarding the display of the video ads within web pages provided bycontent publishers 104 (e.g., an identification of one or more web pagesin which a given video ad is eligible for display). As used herein, atheme or topic refers to the contextual gist of content (e.g.,advertisement or web page). Illustrative examples of themes/topics are“San Francisco 49ers”, “Airplane Accident”, and “Bahamas Travel”.

Publishers database 114 may store information regarding the contentpublishers 104 within system 100 including, for example, informationidentifying the web pages provided by content publishers 104 (e.g., alist of their respective URLs), information regarding the content (e.g.,topics/themes) of those web pages, and/or information regarding thevideo advertisements displayed previously on those web pages and/or therevenue generated therefrom. Alternatively or additionally, publishersdatabase 114 may store information regarding preferences of contentpublishers 104 such as, for example, information regarding the types ofvideo advertisements eligible for display on the web pages provided bycontent publishers 104 and/or information regarding the placement ofthose advertisements within the web pages (e.g., location, format, andsize). In the embodiment of FIG. 1, video ads database 112 andpublishers database 114 are shown as separate databases, although itwill be understood that alternative arrangements are possible. Forexample, a single database may be provided that stores the informationjust described as being stored in databases 112 and 114.

Content parser 116 may include any suitable hardware, software, orcombination thereof for parsing web pages provided by content publishers104 and identifying topic(s)/theme(s) or other indicia associatedtherewith. Content parser 116 may read publisher's content and relate itthrough semantic vectors to one or more topic(s)/theme(s) with anassociated relevancy score. For example, a page of content provided byPublisher A may be determined to be about “Travel” with a relevancy of1.0 (100%), “Vacations” with a relevancy of 0.86 (86%), “Cruises” with arelevancy of 0.72 (72%), and “Live Entertainment” with a relevancy of0.51 (51%). The topics/themes and associated relevancies output ofcontent parser 116 may provide specific ad placement opportunities forwhich individual ads (listings) can bid. The parsed information may beused by video ad application 110 to select video ad(s) for placementwithin the web pages such as, for example, the video ad(s) stored indatabase 112 that are most or very relevant to the identifiedtopic(s)/theme(s).

Content parser 116 may be configured to return a maximum number (e.g.,10 or more) of themes/topics associated with each page. Alternatively,there may be a different or no limit to the number of themes/topics thatcan be identified by content parser 116. Content parser 116 may return aranked list of themes/topics that identifies the themes/topics in orderof greatest to least relevant to the contents of the web page (e.g.,such that ads associated with the most relevant theme/topic are morelikely to be displayed earlier in a sequence of ads selected by system106 for display). Those skilled in the art will recognize that otherorders are equally useful and may be employed. In some embodiments,content parser 116 may operate substantially in real-time, whereby webpages are parsed at substantially the same time they are accessed byuser computers 102. In other embodiments, content parser 116 may parsethe web pages periodically, continuously, or according to any othersuitable approach (e.g., automatically upon receipt of an electronicnotification from a content publisher 104 that the content of the webpage(s) has changed or under the control of an operator associated withvideo ad system 106). In some embodiments, content parser 116 may beactivated selectively by video ad system 106, based on a determinationof the best yield between “hard match” (i.e., selecting ads specificallyintended for placement within given web pages or sections thereof)and/or semantic matching facilitated by content parser 116. Factorsconsidered within this determination may include factors indicative ofpast performance including the time of day, day of week, and/or theperformance of particular advertisement(s) and/or associated theme/topicon the given web page (or similar pages). In some embodiments, whenvideo ad system 106 determines suitable video ad(s) to display on agiven page provided by a content publisher 106, system 106 may take intoaccount relevancy, effective bid (e.g., the actual price paid for aclick given market dynamics), max bid price (willingness to pay), pastperformance, other criteria, or combinations thereof as they relate tothat specific page.

Video ad system 106 may establish relationships with one or more contentpublishers 104 in order to allow system 106 to place ads within the webpages provided by the publishers upon access of the pages by usercomputers 102. In some embodiments, video ad system 106 may limit thecontent publishers 104 that are permitted to associate with system 106to “premium” publishers such as, for example, providers of web pagesthat typically receive a minimum number of visits per period (e.g., day,portion of day, month, year). One or more threshold criteria may beestablished that govern whether a given content publisher is permittedto associated with video ad system 106. Advantageously, this mayincrease the willingness of advertisers to place their ads through videoad system 106 and increase the revenue that can be derived per adplacement and/or subsequent action (e.g., click-through) by an end userof user computer 102.

Establishing a relationship with a content publisher 104 may includenegotiating a revenue-sharing arrangement between the video ad system106 and content publisher 104 for revenue generated as a result ofdisplaying video ads within the web pages and/or subsequent actions ofend-users of user computers 102. Alternatively or additionally,establishing a relationship with a content publisher 104 may includemanaging interoperability between system 106 and the content publisherto, for example, minimize the latency perceived by end-users of usercomputers 102. Managing system interoperability may include establishinga protocol for communications upon access of the web pages by end usersof user computers 102 (e.g., communications between content publisher104/user computer 102, user computer 102/video ad system 106, and/orcontent publisher 104/video ad system 106).

FIGS. 2 and 3 are flowcharts (200, 300) of illustrative stages involvedin selection and display of video ads within web pages in accordancewith various embodiments of the present invention. More specifically,FIGS. 2 and 3 show an embodiment of a communications protocol between auser computer 102 and content provider 104 (FIG. 2), and subsequentlybetween user computer 102 and video ad system 106 (FIG. 3), that may beadhered to upon a request by user computer 102 for access to a web pageprovided by content publisher 104. Referring to FIG. 2, at stage 202 arequest for access to a web page may be received. For example, a webserver associated with content publisher 104 may receive an HTTP(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) request for access to a web page providedby the publisher from a web browser operating on user computer 102. Atstage 204, content publisher 104 may transmit a response (e.g., HTTPresponse) to the requesting user computer 102, where the responseincludes both content for the requested web page as well as instructionsto initiate a request for video ad(s) from video ad system 106. Thecontent and/or instructions may be received by user computer 102 in theform of markup code, which may be translated and processed by the webbrowser operating on user computer 102. Preferably, the markup code isstructured such that user computer 102 sends the request for video adsto system 106 at substantially the same as or even before user computer102 translates the markup code necessary for rendering the web pagedisplay. If the web page is at least partially displayed before thevideo ad(s) are received from video ad system 106 (e.g., when video adsdatabase 112 does not include any advertisements suitable for displaywithin the web page), the markup code may provide a message or othercontent (e.g., advertisement) for display within the region of the webpage otherwise reserved for the video ad.

Referring to FIG. 3, at stage 302 a request for video ad(s) may bereceived, wherein the request may include one or more video ad selectioncriteria (e.g., location, size, and/or format of the video ad within aweb page). For example, video ad system 106 may receive a request forvideo ad(s) from user computer 102, which request is formatted inaccordance with the instructions received by user computer 102 fromcontent publisher 104 at stage 204 (FIG. 2). Other examples of video adselection criteria that may be included in the request received by videoad system 106 at stage 302 may be the identity of the content publisher,specific web page accessed (e.g., identified by URL), and/or end-userdemographic data and/or preferences (e.g., provided by content provider104 in the instructions sent to user computer 102 through the use ofcookies by content provider 104, or maintained locally by user computer102). At stage 304, a video ad, or a sequence of video ads, may beselected in accordance with the video ad selection criteria and/or oneor more additional criteria such as relevance, bid price, pastperformance, or a combination thereof. At stage 306, the selected videoad(s) may be transmitted for display within a web page. The video adsdisplayed within the web page may be at least partly interactive. Forexample, in response to an end user selecting a video ad (e.g., clickingover the ad region with a mouse while the video is being displayed), theweb browser operating on user computer 102 may be redirected to awebsite of the advertiser.

In some embodiments, video ad system 106 may provide user computer 102with one or more thumbnails (graphics) in response to receiving arequest for video advertisement(s) from user computer 102, where eachthumbnail comprises a single frame (e.g., the first frame, the lastframe, or any other frame) of a corresponding video advertisement storedin database 112. After the thumbnail(s) are displayed by user computer102, a selection of the thumbnail(s) by an end-user (e.g., a clickdirectly on the thumbnail or on an associated option) may cause usercomputer 102 to submit a request to video ad system 106 for the fullvideo advertisement and/or may redirect the web browser of user computer102 to the advertiser's website (e.g., embedded code in the thumbnailmay cause the thumbnail to function as a hyperlink). Over time, video adsystem 106 may rotate (e.g., randomly or according to an establishedpattern) the frame of a given video advertisement that system 106selects and transmits to user computer 102 as being representative ofthe video advertisement. Video ad system 106 may track which frame(s)generate the largest number of “plays” of the video advertisement and/or“click-throughs” to the advertiser's site (e.g., the highest yieldingthumbnail(s)). When video ad system 106 determines that a given videoadvertisement is relevant to a request for video advertisements fromuser computer 102, based at least in part on the tracked information thevideo ad system 106 may select and return particular frame(s) as beingrepresentative of the video advertisement. Alternatively oradditionally, the tracked information may be used by video ad system 106to determine whether the video advertisement is relevant to the requestfrom user computer 102 in the first instance.

The following description provides additional details regarding theselection of video advertisements by video ad selection application 110,as well as the placement and modification of bids by advertisers throughvideo ad system 106. Each advertisement stored in video ads database 112may have a bid amount associated therewith, which bid amount may bemodifiable by the associated advertiser. For example, the advertiser mayaccess a bid/auction interface provided by video ad selectionapplication 110 in order to place and/or modify (e.g., increase ordecrease) a bid amount. The bid amount (e.g., a monetary value or numberof credits) may correspond to the maximum amount the advertiser iswilling to pay for the ad to be selected by system 106 for display undera given set of conditions. Alternatively or additionally, the bid amountmay reflect the maximum amount the advertiser is willing to pay eachtime the advertisement is selected (e.g., clicked) by an end-user aftervideo ad system 106 causes the advertisement to be displayed within aweb page under that set of conditions.

In some embodiments, an advertisement may have multiple bids associatedtherewith, such that the bid amount varies according to the specific adplacement opportunity (e.g., theme, web page, and/or location). Atheme/topic, web page, content publisher, or combination thereof mayrepresent a unique ad placement opportunity. As such, an auction may beestablished for each ad placement opportunity, such that each auctionmay have its own price and its own market. To illustrate, one auctionmay correspond to the placement of ads on any ESPN™ web page regardlessof the content of that page. Another auction may correspond to theplacement of ad(s) on ESPN™ web pages related to the Chicago Cubs™(e.g., where the content of the particular web page may be determined bycontent parser 116). In this scenario, the latter auction may receivehigher bid price(s) if advertisers find the theme/topic “Chicago Cubs”to be particularly desirable.

The market for a particular auction may be characterized by multiplebids from multiple advertisers, where each advertiser indicates themaximum bid amount it is willing to pay. The actual cost that isdeducted from an advertiser's account in response to selection of itsadvertisement by system 106 (for display within a web page) and/or by anend user of user computer 102 may be determined by supporting bids insomething akin to a second price auction. For example, if advertisers A,B and C submit respective bids of $5.00, $3.00 and $1.00 and a minimumacceptable bid price of $0.25 for the theme/topic “Chicago Cubs” on anyESPN™ web page, then advertiser A will be charged $3.01, advertiser Bwill be charged $1.01 and advertiser C will be charged $0.25. Theforegoing example assumes there are no other auctions competing for thesame ad placement opportunity, such as an auction for the placement ofan ad within the specific ESPN™ web page (e.g., related to baseball) inwhich the ad placement opportunity is currently presented.

To select video ad(s) for placement within pages, video ad selectionapplication 110 may evaluate at least one of relevancy (determined bysemantic analysis of a page of content including metadata, actualcontent, supporting graphics and names, etc.), maximum willingness topay, past performance of a listing (e.g., by time of day, day of week,and week of year of that listing on that page), other criteria, andactual price paid based on supporting market data such as the use of asecond-price auction approach. Each value may be given a weight whichcan cause it to be excluded from calculation or weighted superordinarilycompared to its peers on an individual page basis. Each value can alsobe used as a pre-filter prior to evaluation. For example, the system canexclude all candidate listings having bidded topics less than 86%relevant to a page. Alternatively or additionally, the system canexclude any listing having an actual price paid less than $0.50, havinga max willingness to pay less than $1.00, and/or having a pastperformance less than 0.01% for that time of day. Of course, it will beunderstood that the actual numbers/thresholds will be a design choiceconfigurable and selectable by one of ordinary skill in the art.

When video ad selection application 110 selects a sequence of ads fordisplay within a web page, the sequence may be ordered, for example,randomly or based on data associated with past performance, bid prices,relevance to identified topics/themes or a combination thereof. Again,when video ad system 106 determines suitable video ad(s) to display on agiven page provided by a content publisher 106, system 106 may take intoaccount relevancy, effective bid (e.g., the actual price paid for aclick given market dynamics), max bid price (willingness to pay), pastperformance, other criteria, or combinations thereof as they relate tothat specific page. Alternatively or additionally, the selection can bebased on characteristics for individual listings (ads). For example, anindividual URL for a publisher page may consist of a single news articlegenerated on that very day. That page can be set up to calculate yieldbased on the relevance of listings to that topic multiplied by thecustomers' willingness to pay (max bid price). On another page, for arelated news article, the yield score may just be calculated on theeffective cost of the ad multiplied by its past performance on thatpage, its effective cost per click, the max willingness to pay, and itsrelevancy. Each page in a site may be configurable in the calculation ofthe yield product and each component of the yield product has anassociated value with it that allows that component to be “weighted” foreach page. The publisher as a whole (e.g., an entire website) may havevalues that are inherited or considered to be the default for the entirewebsite until such time as those values are overridden on a per page orper section basis.

In an embodiment, application 110 may order the advertisements withinthe sequence of ads according to max bid amount only, which isindicative of the maximum amounts the advertisers are willing to pay.

In another embodiment, video ad system 106 may order the ads within thesequence based on the actual amount the advertisers would pay accordingto market conditions only (i.e., based on all the bids for the adplacement opportunity). For example, when there exist two overlappingauctions for the same ad placement opportunity, ordering the ads by theactual amount that would be paid may produce a different result thanordering the auctions by max bid amount.

In still another embodiment, video ad system 106 may order the adswithin the sequence based on a product of past performance (e.g., bytime of day) and amount paid (e.g., by time of day, when the bid is suchthat different amounts apply throughout the day), and using aconfigurable proxy representative of the average of similar listingsperformance when past performance is not available (e.g., such as when anew advertisement is included in database 112). Only the highestperforming ads may be included in the ad sequence. In this embodiment,where past performance is not available, a value may be calculated forpast performance based on similar listings' performance for the time ofday. The listing itself and the website to which that listing directsusers upon a click may be semantically analyzed to determine their“topic”. For example, a travel advertiser may be assigned a topic of“Travel” or potentially more specifically “Airline Travel” if thatadvertiser is an airline. The performance of similar listings on thattopic on that page may be calculated for that time of day to give thelisting a probability of performance as its initial past performancevalue.

In another embodiment, the ads may be ordered in the sequence of adswith a learning percentage to continuously evaluate other ads (learningpercentage is configurable). For example, if the learning percentage is10%, then 90% of ads delivered may conform to the previous embodiment(or some other criteria for ordering the ads) and the remaining 10% ofthe ads in the sequence may be selected randomly to build listingperformance data relevant to a theme/topic and/or content publisher 104.Still other approaches may be provided in which aspects of the foregoingembodiments are combined (e.g., 10% of ads based on max bid, 20% basedon price paid, and so on).

In another embodiment, video ad selection application 110 may factor“relevancy” scores into the ad selection process (e.g., using not onlypast performance but additionally multiplying the “relevancy” scoredetermined during semantic analysis by content parser 116 whereby, forexample, web-page content may be resolved to be 0.86 relevant totheme/topic Chicago Cubs™ and 0.72 relevant to theme/topic AmericanLeague Pitchers).

Thus it is seen that systems and methods are provided for selecting anddisplaying video advertisements over the internet. Although particularembodiments have been disclosed herein in detail, this has been done byway of example for purposes of illustration only, and is not intended tobe limiting with respect to the scope of the appended claims, whichfollow. In particular, it is contemplated by the inventors that varioussubstitutions, alterations, and modifications may be made withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by theclaims. Other aspects, advantages, and modifications are considered tobe within the scope of the following claims. The claims presented arerepresentative of the inventions disclosed herein. Other, unclaimedinventions are also contemplated. The inventors reserve the right topursue such inventions in later claims.

Insofar as embodiments of the invention described above areimplementable, at least in part, using a computer system, it will beappreciated that a computer program for implementing at least part ofthe described methods and/or the described systems is envisaged as anaspect of the present invention. The computer system may be any suitableapparatus, system or device, electronic, optical, or a combinationthereof. For example, the computer system may be a programmable dataprocessing apparatus, a general purpose computer, a Digital SignalProcessor, an optical computer or a microprocessor. The computer programmay be embodied as source code and undergo compilation forimplementation on a computer, or may be embodied as object code, forexample.

It is also conceivable that some or all of the functionality ascribed tothe computer program or computer system aforementioned may beimplemented in hardware, for example by means of one or more applicationspecific integrated circuits and/or optical elements. Suitably, thecomputer program can be stored on a carrier medium in computer usableform, which is also envisaged as an aspect of the present invention. Forexample, the carrier medium may be solid-state memory, optical ormagneto-optical memory such as a readable and/or writable disk forexample a compact disk (CD) or a digital versatile disk (DVD), ormagnetic memory such as disk or tape, and the computer system canutilize the program to configure it for operation. The computer programmay also be supplied from a remote source embodied in a carrier mediumsuch as an electronic signal, including a radio frequency carrier waveor an optical carrier wave.

1. A system for selecting and displaying advertisements over acommunications network, the system comprising: a database configured tostore at least one advertisement; and an advertisement selectionapplication configured to: receive a request for advertising from a usercomputer, wherein the request is generated automatically by the usercomputer in accordance with instructions provided to the user computerby a content publisher upon the user computer accessing the contentpublisher's page, and wherein the request further comprises one or moreadvertisement selection criteria; and in response to the request, selectat least one advertisement from the database for display within the pagebased at least in part on the one or more advertisement selectioncriteria.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the at least oneadvertisement is a video advertisement.
 3. The system of claim 1,wherein the at least one advertisement is a multimedia advertisement. 4.The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions comprise markup codeprovided to the user computer in response to the user computersubmitting to the content publisher an HTTP (HyperText TransferProtocol) request for access to the page.
 5. The system of claim 1,wherein the advertisement selection criteria is selected from the groupof criteria comprising location, size, and/or format of an advertisementregion within the page, an identifier of the content publisher of thepage, an identifier of the page, end-user demographic data, end-userpreferences, or a combination thereof.
 6. The system of claim 1, whereinthe at least one advertisement is a plurality of advertisements and theadvertisement selection application is configured to select a sequenceof advertisements for display within the page.
 7. The system of claim 6,wherein the advertisement selection application is configured torandomly order the display of the selected advertisements.
 8. The systemof claim 6, wherein the advertisement selection application isconfigured to order the display of the sequence of advertisements atleast partially according to maximum bid amounts by advertisersassociated with the advertisements.
 9. The system of claim 6, whereinthe advertisement selection application is configured to order thedisplay of the sequence of advertisements at least partially accordingto actual amounts advertisers associated with the advertisements wouldpay based on maximum bid amounts submitted by the advertisers for the adplacement opportunity.
 10. The system of claim 6, wherein theadvertisement selection application is configured to order the displayof the sequence of advertisements at least partially according to pastperformance of the advertisements or similar advertisements.
 11. Thesystem of claim 6, further comprising: a content parser configured toparse the content of the page in order to determine one or morerelevancy scores corresponding to the relevancy of the page to one ormore themes; and wherein the advertisement selection application isconfigured to order the display of the sequence of advertisements atleast partially according to the relevancy scores.
 12. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the at least one advertisement is a graphiccorresponding to a single frame of video from a video advertisementstored in the database.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein theadvertisement selection application is configured to rotate over timethe particular frame that is selected as the graphic representating thevideo advertisement and to track user responsiveness to the selectedframes.
 14. The system of claim 12, wherein in response to a selectionof the graphic by a user of the user computer, the advertisementselection application receives a request from the user computer for thevideo advertisement corresponding to the graphic.
 15. The system ofclaim 12, wherein in response to a selection of the graphic by a user ofthe user computer, a browser of the user equipment is directed to awebsite associated with the graphic.
 16. A system for responding to arequest over a communications network for access to a page, the systemcomprising: a content publisher configured to: receive a request from auser computer for access to a page; and in response to the request,transmit both content for the page and instructions to the usercomputer, wherein the instructions direct the user computer toautomatically request advertising from an advertisement selection systemand include one or more advertisement selection criteria for use by theadvertisement selection system to select at least one advertisement fordisplay on the page.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein the at leastone advertisement is a video advertisement.
 18. The system of claim 16,wherein the at least one advertisement is a multimedia advertisement.19. The system of claim 16, wherein the content for the page and theinstructions form at least part of an HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)response.
 20. The system of claim 16, wherein the one or moreadvertisement selection criteria is selected from the group of criteriacomprising location, size, and/or format of an advertisement regionwithin the page, an identifier of the content publisher of the page, anidentifier of the page, end-user demographic data, end-user preferences,or a combination thereof.
 21. A method for selecting and displayingadvertisements within a page, the method comprising: storing a pluralityof advertisements; receiving a request for at least one of saidadvertisements; and in response to the request, selecting at least oneof the plurality of stored advertisements for display within the page,wherein the selecting is based at least in part on past performance ofan advertisement on the page.
 22. A method for responding to a requestover a communications network for access to a page, the methodcomprising: receiving a request from a user computer for access to apage; and in response to the request, transmitting both content for thepage and instructions to the user computer, wherein the instructionsdirect the user computer to automatically request advertising from anadvertisement selection system.
 23. A system for selecting anddisplaying advertisements within a page, the system comprising: meansfor storing one or more advertisements; means for receiving a requestfor an advertisement from a user computer, wherein the request isgenerated automatically by the user computer in accordance withinstructions provided to the user computer by a content publisher uponthe user computer accessing a page provided by the content publisher,and wherein the instructions include one or more advertisement selectioncriteria; and means for selecting, in response to the request, at leastone of the one or more stored advertisements for display within the pagebased at least in part on the one or more advertisement selectioncriteria.
 24. A system for responding to a request over a communicationsnetwork for access to a page, the system comprising: means for receivinga request from a user computer for access to a page; and means fortransmitting, in response to the request, both content for the page andinstructions to the user computer, wherein the instructions direct theuser computer to automatically request advertising from an advertisementselection system and include one or more advertisement selectioncriteria for use by the advertisement selection system to select atleast one advertisement for display on the page.